Love in the Land of Barefoot Soldiers

by Frances Vieta

  “I know about Timkat. I would love to see the Ark, but I don’t expect to be here as late as that.”

  “Well Bruce went there so that he could try to find out if it was the real Ark. I’m not sure he could do that though.”

  Ceseli was skeptical.

  “If he had, I think he would have tried to steal it.”

  “How feasible was that? I know he was a very big and powerful man, but the monks would have protested. How could he get it out of the country?”

  “He stole several important books and manuscripts from the imperial library and he succeeded in getting them back to England. One was the Kebra Nagast. And he took a priceless Book of Enoch. It was composed before the birth of Christ and considered to be one of the most important pieces of Jewish mystical literature. Scholars thought the book was lost. It was only known from fragments and from references to it found in other texts. Bruce changed that by procuring several copies of it. They were the first complete editions of the Book of Enoch ever to be seen in Europe.”

  “What do you mean by procured? Buying or stealing?”

  “I don’t know how he did it. Only that they were written in Ge’ez, and were the only surviving copies, and he smuggled them out of Ethiopia and took them back to England.”

  “Why would the Book of Enoch be so important to Bruce?”

  “Because I think he was a Freemason, and the masons thought Enoch was the Egyptian God of Wisdom. The God’s name was Thoth. And of course because no one in Europe had ever seen the Book of Enoch.”

  “How could the Book of Enoch be written in Ge’ez and be in the Imperial library?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but it is an impressive collection. Many of the scrolls and early papyri were identical to those in the library in Alexandria. But ours did not get burned as did the library at Alexandria. That I do know.”

  “Are there other such unique texts still in the library?”

  “You, Miss Larson, are the archaeologist. Why don’t you find out?”

  Ceseli paused looking at him. “Thank you, Yifru. I’ll try.”

  CHAPTER 22

  BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

  The deafening noise of gunfire woke her. It couldn’t be the war, Ceseli thought. Then she remembered that the twenty-one shot cannon salvo announced the emperor’s forty-fifth birthday. It was July 23, 1935.

  Just before 9 a.m., accompanied by his priests and counselors, the emperor, wearing a black cape embroidered in scarlet and gold and wearing the Golden Collar of Solomon, walked into Menelik’s immense throne room at the old Ghibbi palace. In the center of the huge room, the Alga, the oriental bed throne with its four posts and a canopy, was newly trimmed in crimson velvet. In the penumbra of the chamber, as he sat motionless on the Alga, Haile Sellassie’s face was one of enigmatic mystery.

  One by one, the great leaders and shums walked into the emperor’s presence. They laid their swords and shields by their sides, prostrating themselves before him.

  The press had been invited and came. Next to each of the lions’ manes and spears, the gold encrusted rhino skin shields and every elaborately attired shum there was a photographer with his magnesium flashgun. Although European statesmen might try to conceal it, through these journalists the world now knew that a cultural and picturesque Ethiopia did exist.

  Rutherford and Standish were among the diplomatic corps that kissed the emperor’s hand while the young officers of the Imperial Guard stood at attention.

  “That’s Gugsa,” Standish said under his breath, indicating the arrival of the emperor’s son-in-law, Haile Sellassie Gugsa, hereditary prince of the Tigre Province.

  “Quite boorish, isn’t he?”

  “He claims to be the descendent of the Emperor Yohannes.”

  “I’m willing to bet he’s a descendent of Solomon, but is he a traitor?”

  “I find no proof of it.”

  “The Italian Ambassador hasn’t come,” Rutherford whispered.

  “No. I don’t see him,” Standish said, looking around.

  “He was offended at the emperor’s speech to Parliament. He insists that saying that Italy was preparing an act of aggression was incorrect. Italy was coming to civilize the country. The emperor is very sensitive when the word “civilize” is used,” Rutherford added.

  “Yifru said he’s holding a raw meat gebir tonight for five thousand men.”

  Rutherford watched as the French Ambassador approached the Alga.

  “The Empress Zaudita loved to do that. These gebirs were her favorite kind of banquet. Raw meat, mead, you know the whole Homeric scene. Or King Arthur, for that matter.”

  “The press would eat that up, excusing the pun,” Standish said under his breath.

  “Won’t be there. The emperor has forbidden any foreigners. Particularly, the press. It falls in the same category as civilization,” Rutherford added.

  “Tough on Zeri and his lot.”

  “Very much so.”

  The room is getting very crowded, Ceseli thought, standing off to the side.

  “I was pretty sure you’d be here,” Marco said a few minutes later as Yifru found room for them with the distinguished local foreigners, the hotel keepers, shop owners, bank managers, and school teachers who lined up to wish the monarch well.

  “Who’s the guy standing behind the Emperor?” Marco asked.

  “The imperial impersonator.”

  “Impersonator?”

  “His Likamaquas. I’ve seen him often at the palace. According to the imperial tradition, he has to dress up as the emperor as if he were in battle and wave the red parasol to deceive the enemy.”

  “The red parasol?” Marco winked.

  “Only the emperor carries the red parasol. It’s his sign of power.”

  “That’s one of the traditions Zeri would love,” he said, holding her hand.

  “He’s still here?”

  “Oh yes. He comes over to the compound a lot. He’s doing some kind of a story on the Falasha Jews. In the area north of Lake Tana.”

  Ceseli shrugged. “I’m surprised that the emperor let him go. Yifru says the emperor likes him. He believes that, above all, he’s an honorable man and I’m not going to second guess the emperor.”

  Marco noticed the coldness in her voice.

  “Look,” she said, as forty Muslim envoys prostrated themselves before the throne. Next, it was the children of the imperial schools presenting nosegays.

  “I ran into him one day at the market,” Ceseli continued. “He must go there often. But I do, too. He was very nice. Showed me a couple of tricks with his camera. Very polite.”

  “I sense you don’t like him, but he’s not a bad person.”

  “You know him better,” she said, a little piqued that they should disagree on human nature.

  “Yes and no. In some ways he’s everything you’d expect a reporter to be. Censorship and all. But in others, I don’t know. We’ve done a lot of late night talking. He’s very open and humorous, but it’s like I do all the talking. I don’t know exactly how to describe it. I have almost no idea what he really thinks. Maybe he doesn’t trust me.”

  “Do you trust him?”

  “Would I trust him? Yes, I think so.”

  “Maybe you should trust your own judgment.”

  That evening, the emperor sat at his high table poised above the feast. The huge hall was transformed with rows of tables and benches. The gebir was a way to keep in touch with his fighting men. The five thousand men had their rifles and spears by their sides. They ate a huge amount of meat and drank copious draughts of tej, which at the emperor’s table was served in silver pitchers, to his soldiers in huge earthenware jugs.

  The Homeric atmosphere increased when the raw oxen and sheep were carried from table to table on long poles. The soldiers chose the choicest pieces hacking them from the carcasses with an upward thrust of a knife.

  The boasting was curtailed that night. Haile Sellassie had already recognized that the Ethiopians’ s
uperiority complex, their invincibility and lack of fear in front of an enemy, particularly the Italians, was the most serious military problem that he had to face.

  CHAPTER 23

  “WHAT ARE YOU UP to?” Marco asked on the phone. It was Sunday afternoon and Ceseli felt creative.

  “I’ve been painting. I thought you were working?” she said, looking down at her pants decorated with various dribbles of color. Her hair was pulled back so it wouldn’t get into the paint.

  “Can I come over?”

  “You’ll be bored.”

  “I’ll bring a book.”

  “Sure, then come. Warren and Standish have gone hunting with the British Ambassador.”

  “I didn’t know you had such talent,” Marco said, looking over her shoulder.

  “What’s this?” he asked, pointing to a drawing in her notebook.

  “It’s the drawing of a tendril motif I saw at Axum. There’s another just like it in the British museum. I saw it with my father. He dragged me through every museum in Europe, especially the British Museum which has a large collection of plundered art. Most of them are archaeological pieces, like the Rosetta Stone from Egypt and the Elgin marbles from the Parthenon in Athens. You know the British Museum?”

  “I’ve been there several times. I spent the summer in London after graduation from liceo and before going to medical school. It was a graduation present from my parents.”

  “Well every time Daddy saw the Elgin marbles he was outraged. Recovering stolen art was his hobby,” she said, pausing. “He was interested in the legal issues, what countries could do to get back their own national treasures. He wrote several articles on the marbles and gave lectures all over Europe. When I was old enough, I helped him on the research. I guess I feel that I’m keeping him here with me by pursuing his interests.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that, Ceseli. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Grieving takes time.”

  “I know.” She paused. “I guess I’ll get used to it. And I shouldn’t pick on the British. They were by no means the first of the great plunderers. I’m sure they won’t be the last. Roman emperors started the plundering. They captured art as booty. Sulla looted Athens, Verres plundered Sicily, and Titus brought back the Jewish treasures of the Second Temple. And later, they brought back from Egypt some of their most important obelisks. There are eight standing in Rome. I think that’s where Napoleon got the idea.”

  “Got what idea?”

  “Napoleon was building his empire. He captured treasures wherever he went. He closed the Italian monasteries and stole their art. The popes had an amazing collection of Greek and Roman marble statues. In 1797, Napoleon forced Pope Pius VI to give him some of his statues and paintings. Some of them were huge marble statues like the Laocoön or Apollo Belvedere. They were shipped to Marseille and then floated in barges up the Rhone River to Paris. I can’t forget the story because Daddy was trying to teach me the laws of physics. You know the one where you put an elephant on a barge and calculate how much water is displaced. The weight of the displaced water is the weight of the elephant. We calculated the weight of every marble piece in the pope’s collection.”

  “If Mussolini conquers Ethiopia, what booty would he take?” Marco asked.

  Ceseli paused. “To begin with, he’d take the things that represent Ethiopia’s heritage, her history. The Ark of the Covenant. My obelisk. The equestrian statue of Menelik II in front of St. George’s Cathedral. That golden lion from the railroad station. Then someone will have to find a way to get them back.”

  “I’m beginning to understand your father’s passion for stolen art,” Marco said. “Do any of them get returned?”

  “Some, I guess, but it takes a very long time.” Ceseli finished the painting, got up and took the notebook into her tukul.

  “Is this yours?” Marco asked, looking around the tukul.

  “Yes.”

  Marco walked to her dresser and took the picture of the Afar girl. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he asked, turning to hold it up to her. “You’re beautiful too,” he said, taking her hand and drawing her gently to him. She moved willingly to him and felt his lips on her forehead, tiny kisses down her cheek and finally her lips.

  After Marco finally left, Ceseli took some notepaper and went back onto the verandah. She had a letter to write that was long overdue.

  Dear Sotzy,

  I want to tell you about a young Italian doctor I met on the train coming to Ethiopia. I’ve been seeing quite a lot of him. Well, maybe not a lot, but we do see each other when he’s not working or doing his research. He’s like a savior. I know that probably sounds corny, but he wants to save people. That’s why he’s here. To find a cure for malaria. I had no idea so many people in Italy suffer from malaria. I only remember Daisy Miller. Do you remember you read me the book?

  He’s very nice to me and he looks like an angel, like the ones you see in a painting by Raphael or Leonardo. He’s funny, too. He makes me smile and laugh. You always told me that humor is much more important than looks. We have a good time together, and I just wanted you to know that.

  How is New York? Tell me all your news. I’ll write again soon, but I want to get this in the mail or it won’t go out on the train. Love.

  She licked the envelope, put a stamp on it, and decided it was time to raid the mission’s icebox.

  CHAPTER 24

  IN AUGUST, A GROUP of American engineers came to Addis. They had been sent to survey a possible site for a much awaited dam on the Blue Nile as it issued from Lake Tana. The group had traveled into Lake Tana from Khartoum in the Sudan, then nine hundred miles along the river and then come down from Lake Tana to Addis by pack mule.

  “Don’t get overly optimistic,” Rutherford told Ceseli and Standish before the three men arrived. “I have been working on this dam project ever since I got here. In 1933, they were already projecting a cost of twenty million dollars. I have no idea what that would be today.”

  Ceseli had flown over Lake Tana on the return trip from Axum. The lake covered one thousand four hundred square miles and formed the headwaters of the Blue Nile, or the Abbay, as the Ethiopians called it. The river ran for five hundred miles in Ethiopia, most of it through one of the world’s deepest and most dramatic gorges, before it joined the White Nile at its junction near Khartoum.

  The three Americans were welcome company. Robert Evans was the leader of the group. He was a big hardy man with a fanatical memory for facts and figures. His two assistants, Larry Peters and John Connolly, were both young and both from New Jersey where the company’s headquarters were. This was their first trip so far from home, let alone Africa, and they were happy to be back to civilization, even if it was only Addis. A hot shower and a cup of coffee had done wonders for their spirits. It had been refreshingly American to see them playing touch football in the garden.

  The evening was cool as Ceseli walked up from her tukul. She was wearing a black cotton skirt with a man’s white shirt belted by a piece of Ethiopian cotton cloth that doubled as a headscarf. Her hair was combed loosely down her back and she wore soft leather boots made for her at the market.

  The table was nicely set with tall white candles, and incense was burning in small earthenware holders. In the background, Ella Fitzgerald sang from the Victrola. The meal was American with some Ethiopian innovations. According to the chef’s preference for roast beef, it was nearly raw, the potatoes were tiny and mixed with baked eggplant and the tomatoes cut in slivers and served with ground teff.

  “The Blue Nile begins in Lake Tana,” Evans said between mouthfuls. “It’s a very rich agricultural area. The land bordering the lake has oranges, lemons, limes, citrons, and bananas. The lower valleys produce corn, teff, indigo, and doura. Barley and wheat flax grow on the highest plateau.”

  “What will the British say to this dam?” Ceseli asked.

  “I understand they didn’t have any objection when the idea was broached several years ago,” Evans answered.
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  “It was at least three years ago,” Rutherford corrected.

  “Is it that much?” Evans questioned. “But the situation has not changed. If the Americans are going to build this dam, the British will lose out. We’ll build the dam and may or may not find a way to sell the water. I don’t think the British will object because I doubt they have the money or the inclination to follow up on the plan.”

  “We’ve seen a copy of the recent report from the U.K.,” Standish intervened. “The British are saying that they have no economic interest in Ethiopia, other than the area of Lake Tana.”

  “That is to guarantee that the water continues to reach Egypt,” Evans said. “Don’t forget that Egypt’s agriculture, for thousands of years, has come from the silt carried by the Nile. That’s what protects their cotton production.”

  “What was the name of that report, Standish?” Rutherford asked. “By the way, do try the Ethiopian wine. It’s very light.”

  “The Maffey Report. Secret and confidential,” Standish smiled.

  “Standish, can you tell Evans what it says. And please have some more meat. It’s not as raw now.”

  “The gist,” Standish began, “is that, besides the importance of the Blue Nile to the British controlled White Nile, Great Britain has no vital interests in Ethiopia which would oblige His Majesty’s government to resist an Italian conquest. For the British, it is a matter of indifference whether Ethiopia remains independent or is absorbed by Italy.”

  “From some points of view, it might be better if Ethiopia were to be absorbed by Italy,” Rutherford interrupted. “England and France will go to great lengths to appease Mussolini. He’s like a child throwing a temper tantrum. He struts, thrusts out his jaw, yells, and they cave in. If it works the first time, it’s learned behavior. He’ll keep at it.”

  The men looked at Rutherford for guidance. “Maffey says that the British have no interest in Ethiopia. Which, of course, will be true, until they do. I believe there’s another thing to be considered. It would not help the interests of the British Empire if a non-white civilization were to prevail against a white one. If you see what I mean,” Rutherford said, smiling at his own acumen.